At a gym class, I'm quite excited when my 21/2-year-old shimmies up the side of a ramp, throws one leg over and slides down the other side.
When he shimmies up the side of his crib, throws one leg over and slides down the other side – well – the novelty quickly wears off. He can get out of his crib.
Surely this is a phase. It's not possible that we're here. It was just yesterday that I picked that crib out of the Pottery Barn catalog, and now he wants to sleep in a big boy bed? I don't think so. He's not ready.
OK, maybe I'm not ready. I can't imagine getting rid of the crib. I think about it sometimes. I mean, how many more nails am I gonna break trying to shove a crib sheet between the mattress and the railing? But losing the crib is like losing the baby.
With reluctance and a little sadness I make one of the twin beds in his room. The pillow and blanket look enormous next to the tiny little quilt draped over the crib railing. I secure the bed rails, lie on the bed, and role play every scenario.
What if he wakes up and doesn't know where he is? I put in a night light. What if he opens his bedroom door and heads for the stairs? I put up a gate. I tuck in the blanket so he can't get tangled. I move the lamp so he can't knock it over. And I hook up monitors so I can hear everything that's happening.
We lay him in his big boy bed. A big proud smile moves across his face. We kiss him goodnight and leave, still shaking our heads in disbelief. He's not a baby anymore.
Now it's midnight, and I don't know if he got out of bed, or fell out of bed, but he's up.
He wants me to change him. Then he needs water. Then he spills water. Then I change the sheets. Then he's singing to his animals. And asking me questions and crawling all over his bed, unable to fall back to sleep.
Two a.m. and I can't handle it anymore. Forget it. I stick him in the crib. He screeches and leaps out. I stick him back in there – six more times. It's like trying to keep a cat in a bathtub. Daddy enters, and now there are two of us, trying to get one child into one of two beds. And we can't do it.
Four a.m. and now we're all in the big boy bed. He finally falls asleep, Daddy goes back to bed. And I move over to the other twin and stare at the ceiling, waiting to see what's gonna happen next.
I slept one hour and 10 minutes last night. After 27 months of sleeping through the night, we're back to month one. Completely sleep deprived. Not knowing what to do. Feeling helpless and doubting our parenting abilities.
I guess I have my baby back.
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